In Goodman’s Theater’s traveling performance of Fannie Lou Hamer, Speak On It!, E. Faye Butler blows in like a hurricane when she takes the stage as Hamer, the late civil rights icon. Back in the sixties, Lyndon Johnson attempted to obscure the impact and purity of Hamer’s simple truths and unshakable convictions by dismissing her as an “ignorant Negro woman”. Through Butler’s portrayal of Hamer in her excellent one woman show, audiences got a fresh picture of what courage looks like and what bravery is made of during every second of this high octane 50-minute escapade.
With the play’s stark honesty and bracing directness, it’s also likely audiences weren’t expecting the many hard knuckled life lessons exploding from this compact entertainment capsule. One that overflowed with inspiration, good sense, humor and more great music than you could possibly anticipate.
A combined effort between the Chicago Park District and the Goodman Theatre, this free production on the famed civil rights activist’s life is an abridged version of Cheryl L. West’s longer work, Fannie, scheduled to run in the Goodman’s 2021 season. Beautifully tailored by director Henry Godinez to act as a call to action in this particularly uneasy electoral season, Fannie Lou Hamer, Speak on It! reminds us that we all have the capacity to become more than we imagine.
At 44 years of age with only a 6th grade education and having spent her entire life sharecropping on a plantation in Mississippi, Hamer didn’t have the pedigree of a Hollywood hero. But she knew there was something fundamentally lacking in her life where nothing got better and there was no sign it ever would. When a field representative from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) showed up one day saying that she had the right to vote, she was both astounded and incredulous. Nobody had ever told her that. Intrigued, and emboldened enough to act by attempting to register to vote in the Jim Crow South, she walked squarely into the annals of history with that first step into self-actualization.
Severely beaten in a Mississippi jail for taking a stance for equality, Hamer suffered lasting damage to internal organs and limbs that plagued her to the end of her life. Sixteen gunshots were fired into her home with the intent to kill rather than warn. Despite that she never considered backing down and would often fall back to the sustaining lyrics of Gospel music to “put on the full armor of God” and continue. Butler’s depiction of Hamer not only brought those experiences to life but went much further by graphically explaining the conditions that fueled her activism.
As Hamer restated over and again in interviews, she was simply trying to make an equitable life possible for her family and other families who were being systematically shut out from attaining dignity in their existence. One component of the dignity she craved was being represented in government by someone sensitive to the needs of people like her, black and poor. Through Butler’s forceful portrayal and the play’s explicit reminders of the social and political challenges we’re now confronting, we see the stark resemblances of what’s happening in America today and the intimidating struggles Hamer endured nearly 60 ago. The play went on to expand the circle of people activists like Fannie Lou Hamer speak for today by pushing for the inclusion of brown people as well as black people at the decision making table along with women.
Rolled out in mid-September to play in 10 parks throughout the city, noting audience reaction to Speak on It! at Indian Boundary Park on Chicago’s far northeast side Oct 7th was surprising. Because Butler’s performance was so captivating and the play itself filled with palpable substance, the standing ovation was anticipated. Still, as enthusiastic as the audience’s response was to something so richly topical and relevant, one might have expected something even more spirited. As a catalyst to get out the vote, there’s no doubt of its success.
Fannie Lou Hamer, Speak On It!
Goodman Theatre & The Chicago Park District
Sept 17 – Oct 8, 2020
